NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) check their guidelines regularly to ensure they remain up to date. They have decided not to update the guideline on antimicrobial stewardship at this time. NICE based the decision on surveillance 2 years after the publication of NICE’s guideline on antimicrobial stewardship (NICE guideline NG15) in 2015.

Reason for the decision

Assessing the evidence

For this guideline, NICE checked any policy or other guidance documents that had been issued or updated since NICE guideline NG15 was published. They also checked any Cochrane reviews related to the guideline – this included any updates to the 4 Cochrane reviews used to inform the recommendations during development of the guideline, as well as any new Cochrane reviews published since October 2014 when the original search took place. In addition, NICE also checked for any relevant National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Signals. Each piece of evidence was checked against the guideline recommendations to assess any potential impact.

The policy, Cochrane reviews and NIHR Signals NICE examined did not indicate a need to update the guideline, therefore we did not undertake a formal evidence review. Furthermore, members of the original guideline committee were in agreement that there had been no substantial changes to the evidence base that would affect the guideline at this point .

NICE also checked for any relevant ongoing studies, and the impact of any publications arising from these in future will be monitored.

Overall decision

After considering the evidence described above as well as the views of topic experts and stakeholders, NICE proposes to not update this guideline.

The UK AMR strategy represents an ambitious programme to slow the development and spread of AMR, taking a ‘One Health’ approach spanning people, animals, agriculture and the wider environment.

The report sets out progress made in 2016, and notes that for the remaining 2 years of the strategy, the programme will focus on delivery of the government’s ambitions set out in response to the review on AMR led by Lord O’Neill. These include ambitions to halve certain types of infection and the inappropriate use of antibiotics.

This professional resource outlines the importance of infection prevention and control and how it can contribute to reducing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) | Public Health England

Every infection prevented reduces the need for and use of antimicrobials, which in turn lessens the potential for development of resistance. In the UK, the current rising threat from drug resistant organisms is from Gram-negative bacteria. Infections caused by Gram-negative organisms are increasing. This professional resource outlines the importance of infection prevention and control and how it can contribute to reducing antimicrobial resistance.

NHS leaders are to write to all NHS staff urging them to be vaccinated against flu as soon as possible. The letter will make it clear that staff who refuse the vaccine will have to give reasons to their employing NHS trust, which will then be recorded.

The heads of NHS England, Public Health England, the Department of Health for England, and NHS Improvement said that they were writing to remind staff of their “professional duty to protect their patients.” Trusts are also being urged to make the flu vaccine “readily available” to staff.

Although last year saw record take-up of the vaccine among staff, more than a third of NHS staff members did not take up the offer, with just a fifth being vaccinated in some trusts.

Hospitals and GP surgeries are being warned by NHS England to be prepared for a big increase in cases of flu this winter after a heavy season in the southern hemisphere.

This quality standard covers interventions to improve the uptake of HIV testing among people who may have undiagnosed HIV. It focuses on increasing testing to reduce undiagnosed infection in people at increased risk of exposure. It describes high-quality care in priority areas for improvement.